NAIROBI, KENYA – John Marwa and his gang used to defend the houses they had stolen from landlords in Kiambiu, a slum located east of Kenya’s capital, Nairobi, with machetes. He is now pioneering peace as the first person in his community to return property to its rightful owner after a decade of violence.
Marwa was a housing agent in Kiambiu when a dispute occurred between landlords and tenants in 2003 following the December 2002 general election.
“It was just after a general election during which some politicians incited the tenants against the landlords, saying the rents were unreasonably high,” Marwa says, gazing at the cluster of structures made of iron sheets and cement floors that constitute Kiambiu slum.
The tenants of one village in the slum, Kosovo, were mostly members of the Luo community. The landlords, on the other hand, were from the Kikuyu community and lived in a relatively well-to-do area of the slum called Sagana.
The tenants decided that they would pay only 300 shillings ($3.50) per month instead of the 1,000 shillings ($11.50) that the landlords charged for the structures, Marwa says. But the landlords refused to reduce the rents, and a standoff followed.
Marwa, a Luo, was then an agent of Martin Gitau, a Kikuyu landlord who had 10 houses in two rows on a small plot of land in Kosovo. Marwa collected rent from tenants on Gitau’s behalf for a commission.
Marwa says he took advantage of the landlord-tenant dispute and took over Gitau’s houses in 2003. Whenever Gitau came to ask for rent, Marwa used to gang up with the tenants and chase him away. Many other landlords met the same fate.
Marwa and the tenants later formed a gang, which took control of Kosovo. The group adopted the name Taliban from the extremist Islamic movement that ruled Afghanistan at the time, though the two had no connection.
“Kosovo became a no-go zone – even for the police – and a hideout for criminals,” Marwa says.
The landlords tried on several occasions to recover their structures by force using a gang of Kikuyu youth called the Mungiki, but they did not succeed. Enmity developed between the Luo tenants and the Kikuyu landlords.
The violence that broke out across Kenya after the 2007 election renewed hostility between the Luo and Kikuyu in Kiambiu, Marwa says. Even after the election dispute was resolved and the rest of the country reconciled, the Luo and Kikuyu in Kiambiu did not make peace.
For 10 years, Marwa owned Gitau’s houses and rented them to Luo tenants. Marwa negotiated with the tenants to pay him 800 shillings per month ($9.20) in rent, as he acknowledges that the 300 shillings ($3.50) they were demanding was unreasonable.
But then Marwa became a member of a youth group that began championing for peace in the slum in December 2012 and has since quieted the decade of violence. He says he felt guilty about owning Gitau’s houses and returned them in August 2013.
Following a three-month grace period, the tenants of these 10 houses and an 11th house, which also belonged to Gitau, moved out four months later at the end of December 2013. Gitau says he is now repairing the structures and then will bring in new tenants.
This marked the first peaceful transfer of homes in Kiambiu.
Young members of two violent gangs in Kiambiu slum have reformed and have become peace champions, reconciling members of the Kikuyu and Luo communities who had lived in enmity for a decade after a dispute between landlords and tenants.
Global Communities, an international nonprofit organization, brought members of the Taliban and Mungiki gangs in Kenya together in December 2012 to promote peace. The young people formed a group called Kiambiu Youth for Peace and Development under the organization’s peace program, called Kenya Tuna Uwezo, and initiated talks between the Kikuyu and Luo.
The gangs no longer exist in Kiambiu, and the youth group is encouraging the Luo who took homes from Kikuyu landlords to return them. They do not have to pay the landlords for the years they took over their properties.
In addition, Kiambiu Youth for Peace and Development has been organizing soccer tournaments in which Kikuyu and Luo youth play on one team. They also mobilized members of the two communities to vote in the March 2013 general election and provided security during the exercise.
Following the first return of homes to Gitau, the youth group recovered 10 more houses in December 2013. These tenants have until March 2014 to move out.
But it is unclear whether these peaceful transfers will continue. Some Kikuyu landlords and government officials are growing impatient with the pace of action and want to use force to recover the properties.
Kiambiu, home to about 50,000 people, is sandwiched between Moi Airbase in Eastleigh, a neighborhood in Nairobi, to the left and Nairobi River to the right.
There is only one entry to the slum, which is also the only exit, where permanent houses made of stone stand. This is the Sagana area where members of the Kikuyu community live.
Deeper into the slum, structures made of old iron sheets become more predominant. Kosovo, where mostly Luo live, sits at the far end of the slum. Most of the iron-sheet houses here have neither toilets nor running water. These are the structures that have been the bone of contention between the Luo and the Kikuyu for more than a decade.
John Okanga, a program officer for Global Communities, which aims to promote sustainable development among vulnerable groups, says his first encounter with the two gangs fighting over the houses in Kiambiu was almost tragic.
“We were in a peace caravan visiting various slums in Nairobi to preach peace,” he says, “and when we entered Kiambiu, we were confronted by a group of youth who demanded to know why we had organized a meeting in their neighborhood without involving them. They blocked the slum’s only exit and threatened to burn all our vehicles. My colleagues and I, however, engaged them in a peaceful manner.”
During their efforts to promote peace in the slum, they realized there were underlying issues that had to be resolved.
“Members of the Kikuyu community said they wanted their houses back before they could reconcile with the Luo community,” he says.
Young people stepped forward.
“Youth from both communities volunteered to lead negotiations for handing over of the structures, and we pledged to support them,” he says.
Global Communities, which draws funding from the U.S. Agency for International Development, facilitated dialogue and the youth group’s activities under its Kenya Tuna Uwezo program, which means “we have the power” in Kiswahili.
Gitau says were it not for the efforts of the youth group, he would not have gotten back his houses from Marwa.
“I had built the houses with the hope that I could raise revenue to take my siblings through school,” he says in a telephone interview. “I tried to confront Marwa several times, but he would come in a group of about 40 rowdy people armed with machetes.”
Gitau eventually gave up.
“I lost hope of ever getting my houses back and decided to seek for other ways of raising school fees for my siblings,” he says. “I’m happy to get my houses back.”
Irene Kerubo, a mother of three children, is a former Taliban gang member who had taken over Gitau’s 11th house. She was renting it at 1,000 shillings ($11.50) per month, which she says was the standard rate for those kinds of structures in any slum in Nairobi. Like Marwa, she also acknowledges that the 300 shillings ($3.50) the tenants were demanding was too little.
But then she became one of the founding members of the youth group championing for peace in the slum with the support of Global Communities. She abandoned her old way of life and gave back the house to Gitau in August 2013.
“I realized I cannot claim to promote peace yet I’m holding onto someone else’s property,” she says.
When Kerubo took over the house, she was a thug, she says. But she is now making an honest living, carrying bricks in construction sites.
Paul Karanja, 30, is also a former gang member, but of the Mungiki, which he defines as a gang and a militia. He fought the Taliban gang in a bid to take back structures belonging to Kikuyu landlords, including his own plot of land, he says.
“We were fighting to recover our property, although the government considered us as thugs,” he says.
But, like Marwa and Kerubo, he also realized that violence was not the solution and joined Kiambiu Youth for Peace and Development.
“I lost many friends in the fight, but we did not achieve much,” he says. “That’s why we’ve been keen to give dialogue a chance because we tried violence and it didn’t work.”
He now owns a grocery store at the border of Sagana and Kosovo and is awaiting the return of his property.
But other Kikuyu landlords who have yet to recover their properties are growing impatient. They say that dialogue, which has been going on for more than a year, is taking too long and that those who have their houses show no sign of handing them over.
Michael Mbuthia, a young Kikuyu man, says a member of the Taliban gang took over his plot of land eight years ago and sold it to someone else. He has not joined the youth peace group.
“We want peace, but we are suffering,” he says.
Force would be more effective, Mbuthia says.
“If we young people decided to take back our property by any means necessary, we would get it,” he says. “We are only engaging in dialogue for the sake of the elderly, who have no strength to fight.”
Joshua Kimani, a 65-year-old man of the Kikuyu community, says a Taliban gang member took his piece of land and sold it to a businessman who built a private school on it. He proposes that property owners consider using other means than dialogue to get it back.
“There are many ways of killing a rat,” he says with a stern voice. “You can either use a trap, poison, or strike it on the head.”
Kimani bought the plot at 200,000 shillings ($2,300) with his retirement benefits, he says. If dialogue does not bear fruit soon, he fears he will die before he gets it back.
Charles Muiruri, the local district officer of the division in Kamukunji district where Kiambiu is located, has ordered those living in other people’s houses to move before he evicts them.
“If you are in someone else’s house, start moving immediately,” he told residents during a meeting in November 2013 in the slum.
He expressed waning faith in the youth group’s methods.
“We have waited and given dialogue a chance,” he said. “We cannot continue like this forever.”
But representatives from Global Communities petition the government and residents to give dialogue more time.
“We have achieved a lot in the past one year,” says Selline Korir, the director of Kenya Tuna Uwezo. “There’s peace in Kiambiu for the first time in a decade. If the government uses force, all the gains we have made will be lost. People will get their houses back, but they may never live in peace.”
GPJ translated some interviews from Kikuyu and Kiswahili.
Mary Wairimu identifies with the Kikuyu community.